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New York Times
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
We're in a New Age of Quick-Dry Nail Polish. But They're Not All Created Equal.
The handy map shows which polish went where in both the professional and nonprofessional manicure sessions. Annemarie Conte/NYT Wirecutter A member of our testing panel did a multi-mani in our office. Kit Iyer/NYT Wirecutter The handy map shows which polish went where in both the professional and nonprofessional manicure sessions. Annemarie Conte/NYT Wirecutter We broke the five polishes we tested into two groups. Three longstanding, well-known drugstore brands — OPI, Essie, and Sally Hansen — have quick-dry formulations that dry in about a minute and only need one or two coats. And two relative newcomers — Dazzle Dry and Olive & June — require more steps and aren't quite as quick-drying as their competition. My professionally manicured nails on day one. Michael Murtaugh/NYT Wirecutter I tested a red cream polish from each brand, applied by a professional manicurist, and then did a self-manicure with a silvery shimmer polish, ensuring that each polish landed on a different finger over time. I kept the polishes on for over a week and took photos of my nails every day, documenting how well the color applied and stayed saturated, any chipping at the tips or elsewhere, and any dulling of the shine. Nail polish wear-time test applied by a professional manicurist, from left to right: Olive & June Quick Dry (thumb), Sally Hansen Insta-Dri, Essie Expressie, OPI RapiDry, Dazzle Dry; Olive & June Quick Dry (pinkie), Essie Expressie, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri, OPI RapiDry, Dazzle Dry. The large chip on the middle finger of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri is due to an unfortunate cheese grater accident on day four and not the polish itself. Annemarie Conte/NYT Wirecutter Our panel testers did their own manicures with the drugstore brands and filled out a survey with their results, which I took into account when crowning my polish queens. It's a good question, one that is shrouded in mystery (to me, anyway). I reached out to more than 15 cosmetic chemists who work in nail polish development independent of the brands I tested. Most of them either didn't see my messages or ignored them. I got ghosted twice. I left voicemails at private-label manufacturers without a response. So, I turned to the brands, and I found that most of their answers were a mix of sales jargon and actual information. Sally Hansen was the only brand that did not respond. But it turns out that regular formulas and quick-dry formulas use the same types of ingredients, just in different ratios. A spokesperson for OPI told me in an email, 'Nail lacquer use[s] solvents, resins, and pigments. Quick dry formulas prioritize using more solvent to enable faster drying. Long wear formulas prioritize more resins to create a durable lasting film.' That means that most quick-dry polishes are not going to wear as long as traditional polish. 'I always joke that these polishes dry as fast as they chip,' said Simcha Whitehill, an editorial manicurist who goes by Miss Pop and who I've known within the industry for years. She often uses this type of polish at photo shoots because the model can go straight to set once the manicure is finished. In some cases, quick-dry polish is thinner to enable that faster dry time. You need to ensure the bottles are tightly capped, as the polish evaporates faster than traditional formulations because of the higher concentration of solvents, said a representative of Olive & June. Essie Expressie, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri, and OPI RapiDry all promised an extremely fast manicure — one to two coats that dry in about a minute. But what you gain in speed, you sacrifice in coverage and quality. Essie Expressie was often streaky or uneven in coverage, whether it was applied by pros (the result looked mottled) or by me. The two-coat formula is mostly available in cream shades, as well as an FX Expressie line that are called top coats but can also be used as base shades. One tester who applied Now or Never, a deep black, reported that it chipped the same day and was unwearable by day two. Sally Hansen Insta-Dri chipped nearly instantaneously for many of our testers, and they struggled with the single-coat application, especially with the darker colors like On the Download, a cobalt-blue, and C-hill Out, a forest green. The line has a nice selection of shades, including dark cream colors, light shimmers, and everything in between, but it is very pink-heavy. While it's the cheapest of the testing pool at about $7 a bottle, you can do better for just a few dollars more. My day six nails of the self-manicure showed recession and loss of sheen, especially with the drugstore brands. Left to right: Olive & June Quick Dry, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri, Essie Expressie, OPI RapiDry, Dazzle Dry. Annemarie Conte/NYT Wirecutter During my pro-manicure test, all three drugstore polishes began to recede at the tip within the first day or two. By day three, they'd lost their sheen, and by day five, they were still mostly wearable, but definitely not fully intact. I experienced some slight staining on my nails with all three brands' red polishes, though OPI was the lightest. OPI RapiDry stood out among the speed demons. The cherry-red color Secs Appeal held up the longest of our three drugstore brands in the professional-manicure test (you can see it the most clearly in the image above, with only minor fading and recession from the nail tip by day six). My self-manicure, a grapefruit-color sparkly shade called Cheers to No Smears, was similarly long-lasting. Color selection is, of course, subjective, but the majority of testers were into OPI's broad color range; one called the shades 'a bit offbeat, which I like.' But another tester found it underwhelming, saying, 'I go for deep reds and purples in the winter, or a nude, and bright pinks/corals in the summer. There aren't many colors I'd look to buy.' This low-cost polish stood out for its color selection, even coverage, 60-second dry time, and five to six days of wear time. Number of coats Approximate dry time Longevity based on testing Approximate cost Sally Hansen Insta-Dri one one minute one to two days $7 per bottle Essie Expressie two one minute two to three days $10 per bottle OPI RapiDry one to two one minute five to six days $10 per bottle Olive & June Quick Dry two, plus a top coat one minute between coats seven-plus days $7.50 per bottle, plus top coat Dazzle Dry two, plus prep, base coat, and top coat five minutes seven to 11 days $39 plus tax and shipping for a starter mini kit and one polish Dazzle Dry and Olive & June require more steps. This would normally annoy me, but based on the middling performance from the other crew, I was willing to give it a shot. The Olive & June Quick Dry professional manicure (in shade Lollipop, a candy-apple red) and self-manicure (in Elevator, a shimmery iridescent pink) I did during the first two rounds of testing held up incredibly well — over a week, when the brand states only five days. I appreciated the underpromise, overdeliver ethos of the wear time. The polish looked clean and neat for 10 days, similar to Dazzle Dry. The trouble started when I decided to do a full manicure on my own. Olive & June Quick Dry requires two coats of polish, plus a top coat, with a dry time of one minute between each coat. The first coat of the gorgeous, shimmery purple called Enchanted went on smoothly. The online instructions in the How to Use section of each polish listing (now corrected by the brand) originally said to wait a full five minutes between coats. The actual instructions are to wait one minute between coats. But in reality, I should have waited even longer, because the polish wasn't fully dry and smudged significantly. Chalking it up to user error, I did a second manicure the next day and the polish still felt tacky when I was finished. If you can't get a good, consistent, quick-drying manicure at home, what is even the point? The color selection (filter down to Quick Dry if you click the link) includes a range of neutrals that look nice on a variety of skin tones, as well as saturated creams and some exciting shimmers. With a solid selection of vibrant cream and shimmery shades, Dazzle Dry gives a long-lasting, salon-quality manicure that dries quickly. But it is expensive and only available in salons or online. So, would Dazzle Dry live up to its name and wow me? Frankly, I found the multi-step process overwhelming at first. I want to just slap on a coat of polish and be done with it! But I timed a full manicure, and it took 22 minutes start to finish, including removal of my existing nail polish. This seemed extremely reasonable to me, because I spent most of my time actively painting, rather than waiting for the polish to dry. The company makes it fairly foolproof, labeling each bottle in the process one through four, starting with a clear liquid nail prep you swipe on with a lint-free pad. Next comes two thin base coats, then two coats of polish, and finally a top coat. Since each of the steps dry quickly, with the formula turning matte once it has dried, the polish was already dry by the time I returned to that nail for the next step. I did have to wait a final five minutes after applying the top coat, but once that was done, I was able to walk away with a solid, no-smudge manicure that didn't transfer onto other surfaces (like a wall or a piece of paper). The pigments are smooth, saturated, and easy to apply, with the top coat adding a salon-quality shine. I got the longest-lasting (over 10 days!), best-looking manicure from Dazzle Dry, and we were impressed with its wide range of shimmer and cream shades. You do have to pay for this greatness: A mini kit costs $39 plus tax and shipping and comes with one mini bottle of polish (additional mini bottles of polish are $12 each and a full size is $22). Full-sized system kits are obviously even more expensive. The Dazzle Dry system includes four numbered bottles that you use in order: Nail Prep, Base Coat, Nail Lacquer, and Top Coat. Dazzle Dry also sells a lightly scented nail polish remover that includes lemongrass and clove oil. Companies began marketing their solvent-based nail polish as 3-free in the early 2000s, removing formaldehyde (a known carcinogen), toluene (an irritant that can be toxic at certain concentrations), and dibutyl phthalate from their formulations due to potential health concerns around the inhalation or absorption of the ingredients through the skin and nails. Most widely available nail polishes, like those from Essie and OPI, are at least 3-free. Although this has since ballooned from three to as many as 21-free ingredients, much of this is marketing-speak. It's important to note that none of these claims are regulated. If you're concerned about potential exposures, you can directly research ingredients at databases like PubChem or EWG, an advocacy organization, and speak with your doctor. Since we completed testing, I've been alternating between doing my own nails with Dazzle Dry and getting a professional mani at a salon that uses Dazzle Dry (which you can find through the Dazzle Dry website). I change out my polish twice a month, with the manicures lasting nearly two weeks. In fact, it's not the polish degradation that causes me to need a redo — it's the fact that my nails get too long and I can feel the feedback on them as I'm typing on a keyboard, which is something I absolutely cannot handle mentally. What I've discovered is that application technique and lifestyle choices definitely affect the wear of a polish, and your pointer finger usually sustains more wear than, say, your pinkie. Your mileage may vary, depending on how well you apply the polish and how careful you are with your hands. Editorial manicurist Miss Pop told me to use a cuticle oil daily to help keep my nails looking good longer. 'It makes your nails more resilient, so they're more able to go with the flow and less likely to chip,' she said. I honestly don't know how much it's helping, but the little, low-impact daily ritual gives me two minutes of self-care thrill. Whether the manicure is pro-given or my own, I repeatedly get compliments on my nails, and I've become more confident in doing them myself. 'It just takes a little bit of practice and muscle memory,' Miss Pop said. 'People get so discouraged that they're not like a top-notch manicurist. But if you do your own nails every week for six months, by the end of it, you will be.' Soon, I might not need to shell out the cash (or take calming breaths) to sit in a salon chair ever again. This article was edited by Hannah Rimm and Maxine Builder. Annemarie Conte Deputy Editor What I Cover I write the Ask Wirecutter advice column, review trending products, and dig into product-focused investigations. Whenever possible, I like to offer free fixes, low-cost solutions, and bigger investments so that readers can decide which option works best for them. I write about what is worth buying, what is overhyped junk, and everything in between.
New York Times
02-05-2025
- General
- New York Times
Ask Wirecutter: Help Me Quiet Down My Neighbors Without Starting a Feud!
Welcome to Ask Wirecutter, where deputy editor Annemarie Conte helps you figure out how to make the most of your stuff in real life. If you have a shopping conundrum for our advice columnist, submit it using this form. Dear Wirecutter, My neighbors are kind of the worst. They're loud, regularly light a fire pit, and play music. Nice people in general, but just inconsiderate. Now that it's getting warmer out and they are outside more, it feels omnipresent. I have brought this up to them a few times, and it's not getting better. I deserve to enjoy my home just as much as they do. What can I do to help the situation? T.C.C. Dear T.C.C., I always know that something has struck a nerve when, after I drop the question in our Wirecutter Slack, our staff absolutely blows up the thread with comments. This question is running 83-responses-deep, and like most internet chats, there are a few gems of actual advice mixed in with the snark. As with many scenarios, people will either see themselves in you ('Can I have a moment of peace, please?') or in your neighbors ('I'm allowed to have a good time on my own property'). I have been on both sides of this situation. I'm sure the neighbors who endured me and my friends during our senior year of college were thrilled when we moved out of their otherwise-quiet neighborhood. Karma always comes around, so of course I've lived adjacent to some college students whose theme parties were pretty epic. We're not talking about the occasional shindig here, however. What you're describing is a regular, robust hang, which might be charming at first. But, depending on the amount of audible merriment it produces, it can become a burden for even the most vivacious of extroverts. On top of that, you've complained about their perpetual fire pit, which produces smoke, ash, and a woodsy aroma. I think the situation requires a bit of awareness on both sides. There are things you and your neighbors can both do to prevent this from blowing up into a Hatfield-McCoy–style situation (for anyone unfamiliar, this was a famous Civil War–era feud, and it is now, apparently, a tourist attraction). But while concessions can be made on both sides, the only person you can really control is yourself.
New York Times
28-01-2025
- General
- New York Times
I Never Thought This Would Happen. But I Can't Stop Talking About My Toilet.
A ground-floor bathroom is a unicorn in my neighborhood, where such a thing is rare among the early-1900s housing stock. After a long, arduous home search, we finally found one. However, the powder room had its quirks: In the 1990s, it had been converted from part of an existing porch, and it even had radiant-heat flooring—the luxury! Well, that powder room—which was really a poorly insulated box on stilts—broke a year after we moved in (frozen pipe). Then it became a glorified storage space for six years, through a pandemic that shot construction costs sky-high. Last summer, we finally bit the bullet: We rebuilt the porch into a well-insulated mudroom masterpiece, and we tackled the defunct bathroom, too. At the top of my wish list for the new bathroom was a toilet we never had to think about. The existing toilets in the house clogged regularly, spurring my husband to beg our children to eat more vegetables while he snaked the pipes. After careful consideration, we chose the Toto Drake, a beauty of a throne that my colleague Doug Mahoney has since named the top pick in his guide to the best toilet. We love the Drake so much that we've installed two more, to replace the easy-to-clog, low-flow monstrosities in the upstairs bathrooms. The irony here is that now, rather than never thinking about my toilets, I think (and talk) about them all the time. I tell people how much I love the Toto Drake at parties. I invite friends with their own renovation projects to come try it for themselves. Who cares about the carefully selected paint color, the flooring, or the vanity? Have you seen this toilet? When we were building our ground-floor bathroom, we wanted to ensure it would be as accessible as possible for our aging parents when they visited. After a bit of research, we found that the Toto Drake has models that meet the Americans With Disabilities Act's recommendations. That means this toilet, at 17.625 inches off the floor, is higher than average, so it's more comfortable for taller folks and for those who need a bit of an assist to stand up from a seated position. Since my kids are out of the toddler stage, I didn't worry about it being too high for them, and we always had a step stool to help them in the past anyway. The aptly named Tornado flush does an excellent job of keeping the bowl clean. Annemarie Conte/NYTWirecutter With a 1.28-gallon flush, the Drake meets water-usage criteria for all 50 states, but it doesn't feel like the low-flow toilets of the past. The design employs a two-hole swirly flush method that Toto named the Tornado. And it produces a flush that's strong and clean every time. Doug explained to me that this cleanliness comes from the toilet's aggressive flush. The water enters the bowl horizontally, in two large jets, and it actually swirls around the bowl eight times farther than a regular flushing toilet. We never have to worry about clogs or skid marks in the bowl, which is something my dear colleague Jon Chase experienced with his low-flow toilet. In the two bathrooms that had enough space, we chose an elongated bowl instead of a round one, since people with penises generally prefer the extra room. (This is one of those situations where I accept something as fact without too much inquiry. I care about my guests' comfort, but I don't really need to explore the details.) One important note is that the Drake comes in both 10-inch and 12-inch rough-ins, which is the distance between the center of the waste pipe and the wall. Although a 12-inch rough-in is now standard, homes built before the middle of the 20th century or those with smaller bathrooms may have a 10-inch rough-in. Regardless of your home's age, you should always double-check the dimensions to make sure the fixture will fit. We usually take photos of the products in use, but we made an exception in this case. Annemarie Conte/NYT Wirecutter This mid-priced beauty costs around $500. It's important to note that the price doesn't always include the cost of the toilet seat, and we had to buy the seat separately. (Some toilets come without a seat because many owners choose to add a washlet, which would render an included seat unnecessary.) The total was a few hundred dollars more than I ever expected to spend on a toilet, but it's still thousands less than the price of luxury commodes that sing, gently warm one's butt, or open and close automatically. The Toto Drake is readily available at big-box stores—which is ideal when you're renovating with a time crunch. This convenience was my favorite part of the purchase process: We didn't have to worry about special ordering or having to wait for our Toto seats, since we could pick them up from Lowe's (or have them shipped directly to our home for free in less than a week). Buying a toilet this way doesn't always work out—and getting one through a plumbing supplier gives you access to a fuller range of options. But it worked out great for us. The plumbers Doug interviewed for the toilet guide raved about the Drake for its quality, durability, and value. One told him that the Drake is the 'front-runner on a high-end, good professional toilet.' Another said, 'They may cost a little more, but you get what you pay for.' Doug added that plumbing message boards are clogged with people saying good things about the Toto Drake. 'It's rare to see that kind of universal enthusiasm for a product,' he told me. We've lived with these toilets for about six months. And we've hosted family gatherings where I smiled every time I heard a flush from the new powder room. Although the Drake hasn't yet seen the worst of what might come—norovirus, hangovers, or colonoscopy prep—I know it'll stand up proudly to the job. This article was edited by Katie Okamoto and Megan Beauchamp. A new toilet may save water and spare you some cleaning work. Here's how to know when it's time to make the switch, and our thoughts on what to get. Bidets baby your butt for a better bathroom experience. I found a spray-on solution to unsightly toilet-bowl markings in SpotLESS Materials Toilet Coating. As a bonus, it helps save water.
